I am suggesting that for the last day of fanimecon volunteers should be aloud to browse and buy things at the extra hour since staff gets that one hour to buy things. I heard staff gets an extra one hour after 3pm to shop and stuff because they were working, I believe that volunteers should get that hour also because when you volunteer you have to wait till all your hours are done to get reimbursed and then you can use your money to buy things and since you have to work 20 hours, some volunteers don't get too much time to shop.
Please leave some comments or anything you like about my suggestion, tell me what you think :D don't be too harsh though im a newbie hehe.
The reason for that (at least, what I think) is that even though vols have to work during the convention, not every volunteer actually makes their minimum hours (although single-day badge people seem to). On top of that, some people don't volunteer until Sunday, and some don't even stay the whole con. Also, a volunteer could - in theory - work on two days (Thursday and Monday) and not miss any time that the dealer's room is actually open, whereas the average staff member is probably going to work through those hours at least twice.
Although I'm speaking from a Volunteer Staffer's point of view, I don't necessarily have anything against vols getting that extra hour...but I don't think we want to have a huge influx of vols on Sunday/Monday just for that hour privilege, and not actually working. Maybe if said vols complete their minimum hours, we can give them a stamp/sticker/special badge notice that will let them in? It's an idea I'll float around.
The issue with something like this is that we do have volunteers ("Vols") that don't work their full hours so a possible issue would be people signing up to be a vol just to be able to shop for that extra hour.
Reimbursements happen all day Monday and I saw plenty of Vols get their reimbursement and then happily run off to AA/Dealers.
Sorry but IMO, I feel strongly against giving Vols that extra shopping hour. As staff, we work more hours than you can imagine to make this con run smooth. There are many of us who are constantly on our feet for 12-15 hrs each day. I constantly tell my staff, if you're working less than 20 hours during the entire con, you *shouldn't* be on staff in the first place. Vols are still given the opportunity to enjoy the con leisurely as a fan whereas staff must usually sacrifice the events they want to attend for their dedication to the con.
I think the only time I got the visit the dealers room any length of time this year was during the staff time on Monday, besides like 20 minutes on Friday night right before it closed. It takes dedication to be staff, because the breaks are rare.